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Then singly each o' th' garlic heads be strips
From knotty body, and of outer coats
Deprives them, these rejected doth he throw
Away and strews at random on the ground.
The bulb preserved from th' plant in water doth
He rinse, and throw it into th' hollow stone.
On these he sprinkles grains of salt, and cheese
Is added, hard from taking up the salt.
Th' aforesaid herbs he now doth introduce
And with his left hand 'neath his hairy groin
Supports his garment;' with his right he first
The reeking garlic with the pestle breaks,
Then everything he equally doth rub
I' th' mingled juice. His hand in circles move:
Till by degrees they one by one do lose
Their proper powers, and out of many comes
A single colour, not entirely green
Because the milky fragments this forbid,
Nor showing white as from the milk because
That colour's altered by so many herbs.
The vapour keen doth oft assail the man's
Uncovered nostrils, and with face and nose
Retracted doth he curse his early meal;
With back of hand his weeping eyes he oft
Doth wipe, and raging, heaps reviling on
The undeserving smoke. The work advanced:
No longer full of jottings as before,
But steadily the pestle circles smooth
Described. Some drops of olive oil he now
Instils, and pours upon its strength besides
A little of his scanty vinegar,
And mixes once again his handiwork,
And mixed withdraws it: then with fingers twain
Round all the mortar doth he go at last
And into one coherent ball doth bring
The diff'rent portions, that it may the name
And likeness of a finished salad fit.
And Scybale i' th' meantime busy too
He lifted out the bread; which, having wiped
His hands, he takes, and having now dispelled,
The fear of hunger, for the day secure,
With pair of leggings Symilus his legs
Encases, and with cap of skin on 's head
Beneath the thong-encircled yoke he puts
Th' obedient bullocks, and upon the fields
He drives, and puts the ploughshare in the ground.
The Salad
Vergil
Scanned from Joseph J. Mooney (tr.), The Minor Poems of Vergil: Comprising the Culex, Dirae, Lydia, Moretum, Copa, Priapeia, and Catalepton (Birmingham: Cornish Brothers, 1916).
The Latin "moretum," which is usually translated salad, would be better called "cheese and garlic paste." It seems to have been a somewhat attractive subject to ancient poets. A poem with this title was written by one "Sveius," and a few lines of it are quoted by Macrobius (iii, 18). Parthenius, who was Vergil's instructor in Greek (Macrobius, "Saturnalia," v, 17), wrote on this subject, and in the Ambrosian MS. of Vergil there is a marginal note saying that Vergil's poem was an imitation or translation of that of his teacher.
Various late grammarians mention lines 41 and 42 as from a poem by Vergil, and Mico Levita (825-853 A.D.), who wrote a work on Latin prosody, quotes line 48 as from a work of Vergil.
source: Virgil.org